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A Shaman's Lament Paperback – July 1, 2021
by Qu Yuan (Author), Red Pine (Translator)
4.7 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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About the Author
Although we know next to nothing about Qu Yuan's time at court, he was said to have been self-assured and unafraid of speaking his mind. Clearly he had a way with words, and people listened to him, including his king. But forthright people have rarely lasted long where power is involved. Qu Yuan aroused the jealousy and envy of others and eventually their slander. When the king believed the slander, Qu Yuan was banished to the north, beyond the Han River. His king, meanwhile, ignored his advice to beware the state of Qin and died a few years later as its prisoner. Qu Yuan was later recalled to court, but the king's son and successor was not receptive and banished him again, this time to the south, beyond the Yangzi, to the region surrounding Dongting Lake. A dozen years later, in 278 BC, Qu Yuan heard that the Chu capital had been sacked by Qin. Feeling that his world had collapsed, he walked into the Miluo River carrying a large stone, not far from where the river enters the lake, and drowned.
Bill Porter, who translates under the name Red Pine, was born in Califoria and grew up in Northern Idaho. He attended Columbia University and studied with a faculty that included Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict. He became interested in Buddhism, and in 1972 he left America and moved to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. During this time, he married a Chinese woman, with whom he has two children, and he began working on translations of Chinese poetry and Buddhist texts. In 1993, he returned to America so that his children could learn English. For the past twenty years, he has worked as an independent scholar and has supported himself from book royalties and lecture fees. During this time, he has lectured at many of the major universities in the US, England and Germany where he has lectured on Chinese history, culture, poetry, and religion. His translations of texts dealing with these subjects have been honored with a number of awards, including two NEA translation fellowships, a PEN translation award, the inaugural Asian Literature Award of the American Literary Translators Association, a Guggenheim Fellowship, which he received to support work on a book based on a pilgrimage to the graves and homes of China's greatest poets of the past, which was published under the title Finding Them Gone in January of 2016, and more recently in 2018 the Thornton Wilder Prize for Translation bestowed by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His translations include ZEN ROOTS: THE FIRST THOUSAND YEARS (Empty Bowl, 2020), WHY NOT PARADISE (Empty Bowl, 2019), STONEHOUSE'S POEMS FOR ZEN MONKS (Empty Bowl, 2019), CATHAY REVISITED (Empty Bowl, 2019), A DAY IN THE LIFE (Empty Bowl, 2018), P'U MING'S OXHERDING PICTURES AND VERSE (Empty Bowl, 2015), and more.
Product details
Publisher : Empty Bowl (July 1, 2021)
Language : English
Paperback : 72 pages
ISBN-10 : 1734187379
ISBN-13 : 978-1734187373
Item Weight : 1.6 ounces
Dimensions : 5 x 0.25 x 7 inchesBest Sellers Rank: #985,644 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)#167 in Chinese Poetry (Books)Customer Reviews:
4.7 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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Red Pine
Bill Porter (aka "Red Pine") is widely recognized as one of the world's preeminent translators of Chinese poetry and religious texts; he assumes the pen name "Red Pine" for his translations.
Bill Porter was born in Los Angeles in 1943 and grew up in the Idaho panhandle. He served a tour of duty in the U.S. Army (1964-67), graduated from the University of California with a degree in anthropology in 1970, and attended graduate school at Columbia University. Uninspired by the prospect of an academic career, he dropped out of Columbia and moved in 1972 to a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. After four years with the monks and nuns, he struck out on his own and eventually found work at English-language radio stations in Taiwan and Hong Kong, where he produced over one thousand programs about his travels in China. In 1993 he returned to America with his family and has lived ever since near Seattle, Washington.
Writing as Bill Porter, he is the author of several travelogues, including Road to Heaven, which focuses on his interactions with Taoist hermits in the mountains of China; Zen Baggage; and his Guggenheim project, Finding Them Gone: Visiting China's Poets of the Past.
Writing as Red Pine, he was the first translator to ever translate the entirety of Han-shan's oeurve into English, published as The Collected Songs of Cold Mountain. Red Pine was also the first to translate into English the entirely of The Poems of the Masters. He has also translated several of the major Buddhist sutras, including the Heart Sutra, Diamond Sutra, and Platform Sutra.
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4.7 out of 5 stars
4.7 out of 5
5 global ratings
Top reviews from the United States
Liam hines
5.0 out of 5 stars Meet Qu YuanReviewed in the United States on June 1, 2022
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I've read a lot of books translated by Red Pine. He's incomparable in his field. I was excited as usual for my order of his stuff to come in, although skeptical of how much mileage I could get out of a 72 page long book.
I expected a translation, but that's not what I got.
Instead, someone boxed up Qu Yuan and shipped him to my doorstep. Red Pine doesn't translate Qu Yuan, he says, "hey, there's Qu Yuan over there, want to meet him?"
He seems to be a strange man, from distant shores of time and place. But despite his attire, and a strange turn of speech or two, you very quickly get to know him. He doesn't tell you his whole life story, just what you need to know. He tells you his troubles—but he doesn't complain:
He seems to be a strange man, from distant shores of time and place. But despite his attire, and a strange turn of speech or two, you very quickly get to know him. He doesn't tell you his whole life story, just what you need to know. He tells you his troubles—but he doesn't complain:
together, you comisurate, like two proud down-and-outers trying to piece together where it all went wrong. I feel like I met him at a dive bar.
There is also a very brief memorial for a friend of Mr. Pine, Mike O'Connor to whom the book is dedicated, politely slipped under the front cover.
There is also a very brief memorial for a friend of Mr. Pine, Mike O'Connor to whom the book is dedicated, politely slipped under the front cover.
Although it's peripheral to the translation at hand, it isn't unconnected from the work. A lament bridges millenia in a second, makes the seconds last a century...that is the power that gives works like Oedipus and Gilgamesh immortal: as long as people exist, their themes of loss—their lament—if a fire burning on infinite fuel. This was the first thing I saw upon opening the book. It primed me for the message to come. You need to be able to resonate with a feeling of deep loss to be able to get the full effect of this short work.
I can finally see why his name never left the mouth of the poets who came after him. In a sense, it wasn't just his name—it was his voice, too.
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Michael Bever
5.0 out of 5 stars mystic masterpieceReviewed in the United States on August 4, 2021
ancient transcendent-voiced poetry. transportation beyond.
Focused contemplation of this work opens the doors of perception without artificial enhancement.
Clear light in two stunning poems.
2 people found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
I can finally see why his name never left the mouth of the poets who came after him. In a sense, it wasn't just his name—it was his voice, too.
HelpfulReport abuse
Michael Bever
5.0 out of 5 stars mystic masterpieceReviewed in the United States on August 4, 2021
ancient transcendent-voiced poetry. transportation beyond.
Focused contemplation of this work opens the doors of perception without artificial enhancement.
Clear light in two stunning poems.
2 people found this helpful
HelpfulReport abuse
